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Swiss Watch Retail Market Share by Brand 2020

Evitzee
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Makes for interesting reading. Rolex is a juggernaut, highest percentage of sales by value, yet you can't find them at retail.
Edited:
 
pdxleaf
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So that's why I don't have a Vacheron Constantin! I thought it was because I couldn't afford one but I see it's actually because they are only 1.5% of the market. I guess there just aren't enough to go around.

(There are some surprising percentages. Not what I would have guessed.)
 
vitriol
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Titoni as World's 37th strong brand has surprised me.
Literally, I never heard of this brand before. Quick research says it is a low- and mid-range brand targeting China, and it is hot on that market.
2020 in general has showed a power of Chinese market. While the global Swiss watch export goes down (consistently YOY) - sale to China goes up even in the covid-year.

mt3_200112_a-1.jpg

https://www.fhs.swiss/scripts/getstat.php?file=mt3_200112_a.pdf&previous
Edited:
 
Nobel Prize
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now divide that by:

Richmond:
  • Vendôme Luxury Group, including:
    • Cartier - jewellery and watches; based in Paris, France
    • Montblanc - writing instruments and watches; based in Hamburg, Germany
    • Baume & Mercier - watches; based in Geneva, Switzerland
    • Chloé - women's clothing; based in Paris, France
    • Dunhill - men's clothing, watches and leather goods; based in London, United Kingdom
    • Piaget - jewellery, watches; based in Geneva, Switzerland
    • Vacheron Constantin - watches; based in Geneva, Switzerland
Swatch Group:

And independent.

Rolex etc.

It makes it even more interesting.
 
Donn Chambers
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vitriol vitriol
Titoni as World's 37th strong brand has surprised me.
Literally, I never heard of this brand before. Quick research says it is a low- and mid-range brand targeting China, and it is hot on that market.
2020 in general has showed a power of Chinese market. While the global Swiss watch export goes down (consistently YOY) - China goes up even in the covid-year.

mt3_200112_a-1.jpg

https://www.fhs.swiss/scripts/getstat.php?file=mt3_200112_a.pdf&previous

My first new “premium” Swiss watch was a Titoni back in the late 90s; discovered it on Timezone back in the day where the brand was talked about a lot - the Airmaster model was hot for a brief moment. I ordered it out of a shop in Thailand.

It was a quality watch, although a little small for my tastes. I’ve kept up with their offerings over the years, and their designs haven’t been very good until recently. The new dive watch looks nice:

https://www.titoni.ch/en/collection/gents-watches/seascoper.html
 
Archer
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Evitzee Evitzee
Makes for interesting reading. Rolex is a juggernaut, highest percentage of sales by value, yet you can't find them at retail.

Their production is down by 19%...
 
Archer
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wsfarrell wsfarrell
Link?

Sure:

Tubber Tubber
Thought this might be interesting to some.

https://www.watchpro.com/rolex-acco...entire-swiss-watch-industrys-annual-turnover/

x1180680-7c3b7367944c701c2476461beca0b5bb.jpg.pagespeed.ic.wYtDL_5X20.webp
 
cvalue13
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Monochrome does a more detailed analysis of the Morgan Stanley report

Unfortunately neither Monochrome or Watchpro link to the actual 2021 Morgan Stanley report, and I’ve not sourced it elsewhere.

But Monochrome does provide more of Morgan Stanley’s charts, as of interest here:

1C2C1E46-9EA8-4CE7-9351-97CDBDF140CE.jpeg 3F987EE4-3299-41D7-93CD-3180B546C079.jpeg 2D2EBAED-5887-46C4-8263-BBB853258AB3.jpeg
 
cvalue13
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Archer Archer
Here you go...

Swiss_Watch_Market.pdf - Google Drive

Thanks, great find!

As expected, MS's analysis continue to suggest that Rolex is in fact selling the ever-loving sh*t out of watches: 810K units at avg. $10K/unit, vs Omegas 500K units at avg. $6K/unit. (And while Rolex was down 19% in 2020, that's a win compared to the market average of ~35% down.)

Despite all of our collective views that there are no Rolex to be purchased, the truth may be stranger than fiction. WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY GOING
 
wsfarrell
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cvalue13 cvalue13
WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY GOING
I think they're mostly going to flippers who walk into less-than-scrupulous dealers with bags of cash, pay MSRP + 20% for desirable watches, then sell them on eBay, chrono24, etc. for MSRP + 100%. Here's what Morgan Stanley said:

The current situation is that the grey market still exists with people flipping the rare
pieces of the Rolex collection with mark-ups going from 50-100% of the suggested
retail prices. The question is whether the brand is willing to acknowledge that an
unofficial market (“grey market”) even at prices over the official ones, is damaging the
brand’s reputation. It seems that the brand is currently going after their authorized
retailers who are potentially not playing by the rules, as the recent example of C.D.
Peacock (official Rolex retailer in Chicago) shows.
 
cvalue13
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wsfarrell wsfarrell
I think they're mostly going to flippers who walk into less-than-scrupulous dealers with bags of cash, pay MSRP + 20% for desirable watches, then sell them on eBay, chrono24, etc. for MSRP + 100%..

on the back of that turtle is another turtle: where are all of THOSE going?

Also, for me I start to become skeptical of the prevailing wisdom that "all Rolex go to flippers" when I see that the hand-in-hand prevailing wisdom that "there are no Rolex to be purchased" appears so wildly out of tune with market reports showing Rolex selling 1.6 units for every 1 unit sold by Omega. All I mean is, it could very well be true that "all Rolex go to flippers," but the data is so disorienting that I wouldn't stake any certainty one way or the other.

One contributing factor of disorientation could be: Rolex errors its manufacturing toward underproducing (thus selling nearly everything, and at high volumes), while Omega errors its manufacturing toward over-producing (thus selling lower volumes, AND having units in display cases across the country). The result being that display cases tell us more about a manufacturing attitude (or health) than number of units available for purchase.

Indeed, watch industry analysts have talked about the "bullwhip" issue in watch manufacturing (basically, at register sales result in a distorted overproduction of units at the manufacturer), and that "bullwhip" being wildly harmful to the industry. (Interestingly, those analysts have suggest watch manufacturers need to cure the "bullwhip" issue with direct-to-consumer sales, and the MS report suggests Omega has excelled at this in 2020 through it's online sales platform...)
 
Nobel Prize
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cvalue13 cvalue13
Monochrome does a more detailed analysis of the Morgan Stanley report

Unfortunately neither Monochrome or Watchpro link to the actual 2021 Morgan Stanley report, and I’ve not sourced it elsewhere.

But Monochrome does provide more of Morgan Stanley’s charts, as of interest here:

1C2C1E46-9EA8-4CE7-9351-97CDBDF140CE.jpeg 3F987EE4-3299-41D7-93CD-3180B546C079.jpeg 2D2EBAED-5887-46C4-8263-BBB853258AB3.jpeg
Now the is a more interesting metric for competitive set and performance. Would Tudor report as Rolex?
 
Nobel Prize
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cvalue13 cvalue13
Thanks, great find!

As expected, MS's analysis continue to suggest that Rolex is in fact selling the ever-loving sh*t out of watches: 810K units at avg. $10K/unit, vs Omegas 500K units at avg. $6K/unit. (And while Rolex was down 19% in 2020, that's a win compared to the market average of ~35% down.)

Despite all of our collective views that there are no Rolex to be purchased, the truth may be stranger than fiction. WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY GOING
To the gray dealers and independent dealers that sell a 12g watch at 34g or a 5g for 15g and then pay handsomely to the back chain of supply.
 
cvalue13
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Nobel Prize Nobel Prize
Now the is a more interesting metric for competitive set and performance. Would Tudor report as Rolex?

Tudor is included under Rolex group in the group comparison chart first shown above (showing >28% market share), but Tudor represents only 8% of Rolex’s total sales 😲 - which is why in the brand-comparison chart Rolex is still >26% of market share

308CD947-0CC4-4FA3-ACE4-67B6AA1BBECC.jpeg


the per-brand sales figures noted above (>800k units Rolex, 500k units Omega, etc.) were ignoring Tudor

🤔
 
cvalue13
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To the gray dealers and independent dealers that sell a 12g watch at 34g or a 5g for 15g and then pay handsomely to the back chain of supply.

that may well be right, but if so it’s even MORE alarming in that it means that many Rolex are actually finding buyer market even at inflated cost!

the only scenario I can think of where this sales data is bad news for Rolex is if Rolex is selling to grey, but grey is sitting on massive stranded stock so Rolex’s sales data is distorted by glut
 
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